Ingredients

150g dark chocolate
170g beetroot cooked (3 beets)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g black beans (drained & rinsed)
150g sugar
Zest of an orange
Juice of half an orange
50g ground pecans
3 eggs
75g pecan pieces

 Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C / gas mark 3. Grease a 22cm x 22cm square cake tin and line with baking paper. Melt the chocolate and vanilla in a bowl over simmering water, once melted remove from the heat and allow to cool. Blend the beans, beetroot and orange juice to a fine puree in a food processer or blender. Add the sugar, orange zest and ground pecans to the bean mixture and pulse to combine. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the melted chocolate mix. Pour into the tin and scatter with pecan pieces and bake for 25-30 minutes. If you are testing with a skewer it will come out with damp crumbs attached when it is ready. Allow to cool and cut into squares.

Sprinkling of science

Think vanilla and most people will think vanilla ice-cream. There is however so much more to this flavouring derived from an orchid as per its various uses in the food, perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. As an oil vanilla has been suggested to possess a sedative quality but the important ingredient, vanillin is where it’s all thought to happen as science looks to its anti-inflammatory properties in conditions such as inflammatory bowel diseases. This on top of suggestions that vanillin might just help us to deal with pain too.